SPELLBINDERS
'Harry Potter' leads pack of 2018's noteworthy shows
HERE are the people, shows and events sure to grab Broadway’s attention in 2018.
ABRACADABRA: The “Harry Potter” carnival is headed to town, and tickets are going fast: Every time a new block goes on sale for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” they’re gone within an hour or so, and the advance is racing past $20 million. There have been complaints about the complicated ticketing system, designed to discourage scalpers, but production sources say they’re working out the kinks.
The nearly six-hour play, performed in two parts, starts performances March 16 at the Lyric Theatre, which is undergoing a multimillion dollar renovation. Sleepy 43rd Street between Broadway and Eighth is set to become “Harry Potter” land, complete with fans coming in character.
Look for J.K. Rowling on opening night, and one of the biggest parties of the season. BOTS AND BROKERS: Broadway’s war with ticket scalpers will ratchet up this year as each side tries to outfox the other. The attorney general cracked down on bots last year, so scalpers paid people to stand on line at box offices and scoop up as many tickets as they could. (Theater owners set limits but can’t refuse to sell a ticket to anyone, even if they suspect them of scalping.) Those aren’t girls in Elsa costumes in the line at the St. James, where “Frozen” opens in March.
Ticket fraud is on the rise, as well. Ushers tell me that theater-
goers arrive only to discover that the ticket they bought on Craigslist is phony. And they are furious.
“It’s getting really ugly out there,” one usher says. “And people take their anger out on us.” BROADWAY’S NEW QUEEN:
Bette Midler — who whipped up $50 million in tickets sales last year for “Hello, Dolly!” — is about to relinquish her throne. I predict the next occupant will be Tina
Fey. She’s done a terrific job adapting her popular movie “Mean Girls” to the stage. The tryout in Washington, DC, was a sellout, and the production should arrive at the August Wilson with at least $15 million in the till. Even so, Fey’s fine-tuning the show, and composer Jeff Rich
mond and lyricist Nell Benjamin are adding new songs.
GREAT DAMES: Call me an Anglophile, but I can’t wait to see Diana Rigg and Glenda
Jackson on Broadway this year. Rigg is playing Henry Higgins’
mother in “My Fair Lady,” while Jackson is tackling one of the most diff icult roles in the American theater — A, as the tough old lady is called, in the revival of Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women.” Rigg hasn’t been on Broadway since she won a Tony as Medea in 1994. Jackson hasn’t been here since she played Lady Macbeth in 1988. I’m inviting both dames to tea at the Whitby Hotel. (It’s very popular right now with visiting British theater royalty.) I bet they have stories to tell! BEANTOWN, HERE WE
COME: Most of Broadway will be on the Acela to Boston this summer for the reopening of the Colonial Theatre. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote much of the score to “Oklahoma!” at the Colonial. Michael Bennett choreographed “Who’s That Woman” (the “mirror number”) from “Follies” on its stage. Tommy Tune hunkered down there and turned a stinker called “My One and Only” into a Broadway hit.
Opening in June at the Colonial is the $25 million “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.” It had a workshop in New York a few weeks ago that went extremely well. All aboard!